[Footnote 1: Memoirs, p. 422.]
[Footnote 2: Atheniæ Oxon. p. 274.]
[Footnote 3: ibid. vol. ii. col. 34.]
[Footnote 4: Athen. Oxon. col. 35.]
[Footnote 5: Preface to his Poems in 8vo. London, 1651.]
[Footnote 6: Wood.]
* * * * *
GEORGE SANDYS,
A younger son of Edwin, Archbishop of York, was born at Bishops Thorp in that county, and as a member of St. Mary's Hall, was matriculated in the university in the beginning of December 1589; how long he remained at the university Wood is not able to determine. In the year 1610 he began a long journey, and after he had travelled through several parts of Europe, he visited many cities, especially Constantinople, and countries under the Turkish empire, as Greece, Egypt, and the Holy Land[1]. Afterwards he took a view of the remote parts of Italy, and the Islands adjoining: Then he went to Rome; the antiquities of that place were shewn him by Nicholas Fitzherbert, once an Oxford student, and who had the honour of Mr. Sandys's acquaintance. Thence our author went to Venice, and from that returned to England, where digesting his notes, he published his travels. Sandys, who appears to have been a man of excellent parts, of a pious and generous disposition, did not, like too many travellers, turn his attention upon the modes of dress, and the fashions of the several courts which is but a poor acquisition; but he studied the genius, the tempers, the religion, and the governing principles of the people he visited, as much as his time amongst them would permit. He returned in 1612, being improved, says Wood, 'in several respects, by this his 'large journey, being an accomplished gentleman, as being master of several languages, of affluent and ready discourse, and excellent comportment.' He had also a poetical fancy, and a zealous inclination to all literature, which made his company acceptable to the most virtuous men, and scholars of his time. He also wrote a Paraphrase on the Psalms of David, and upon the Hymns dispersed throughout the Old and New Testament, London, 1636, reprinted there in folio 1638, with other things under this title.
Paraphrase on the Divine Poems, on Job, Psalms of David, Ecclesiastes,
Lamentations of Jeremiah, and Songs collected out of the Old and New
Testament. This Paraphrase on David's Psalms was one of the books that
Charles I. delighted so much to read in: as he did in Herbert's Divine
Poems, Dr. Hammond's Works, and Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity, while
he was a prisoner in the Isle of Wight[2].